


Ella Qui Guérit

by Sarielle



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Asexual Character, But only at the start, Eliyahu HaNavi is invited on holidays, Existential Angst, Family Dynamics, Gen, Immortal Jew Club of London, Implied/Referenced Antisemitism, Implied/Referenced Genocide, Jewish Aziraphale, Jewish Crowley, M/M, Misgendering, Sheyd!Crowley, Shoah Mention, Sibling Bonding, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 19:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19752388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarielle/pseuds/Sarielle
Summary: An angel, a demon and an archangel meet up at a bookshop in SoHo to kvetch.(Just one interpretation of the Archangel Rafael.)





	Ella Qui Guérit

**Author's Note:**

> Back on my Jewish Bullshit again everybody. Ella was born from a conversation in the Good Omensch server about how the Archangel Rafael isn't Crowley but they're probably off somewhere doing their own thing Tikkun-Olam-ing on their lonesome. 
> 
> The title is a pun on the french 'She who heals' itself a twist on the Hebrew Rafael which can be read as "G-d who Heals"
> 
> Thank you as always to everyone from the discord I love you all!!!
> 
> Lilit(h) belongs to Rachel Tikkunhayam, the Tanakh, and most importantly herself.
> 
> Yael (trustme-im-a-pirate)

It had been a normal Thursday afternoon. Crowley and Aziraphale had been lazily browsing wine in the cellar of a posh sommelier’s whose family Aziraphale had known back in Nice in the Eighteenth Century. They tasted a good few bottles, before loading up the Bentley and heading back to the bookshop where they both intended to get incredibly drunk (on Aziraphale’s insistence) and watch The Sound of Music (on Crowley’s)

That was the plan, but as both men, were becoming increasingly aware, plans seemed to be made just to fall through these days.

They were arguing at the zebra crossing about Aziraphale’s suggestion that were Dame Julie Andrews to be Canonised she would be Saintt Dame Julie because ‘she worked very hard to get where she is today and I don’t think the Almighty would like to minimize that,’

Crowley, a recovering Devil’s Advocate and practicing Jew who knew next to nothing about the Vatican’s canonization process but wanted to argue anyway, was arguing for Dame Saint Julie because it was alphabetical and therefore neater.

“Oy hang on a second, what’s her problem?” Crowley said, looking over the top of his sunglasses out at the road in front of them.

Aziraphale who was thoroughly too invested in this discussion for someone who claimed to despise the Sound of Music grew pink with indignation.

“She doesn’t have any problems, you insolent snake! She’s Dame Saint Julie Andrews!”

“No, angel, look that woman’s fallen over.” He gestured towards the crossing where the elderly woman they’d been waiting to cross had stumbled and was lying on the pavement.

Aziraphale yelped and flung his door open jumping out, realizing he couldn’t because his seat belt was still on, unbuckling himself and trying again.

“Angel, don’t it’s the middle of the day in the middle of the road! People will see if you try and miracle her well.” But the angel was already scrambling forward on the asphalt.

A woman in scrubs was already knelt down beside her when Aziraphale got there. She didn’t look up when she heard him approach, busy checking vital signs and elevating the woman’s head.

“Thanks for stopping, but there’s not much else to do, except move her out of harm’s way. I called an ambulance. She’s stable for now. Evidently, there are other issues that need to be seen but I’m not the best doctor for that.”

“Let me help you get her to safety at least?” He offered

The woman stood up and brushed some gravel off her legs. She was short and smiley with warm brown skin and dark natural hair that was tied back in a puff.

Her name tag hanging jauntily on the lapel of her scrubs read 'Ella.' She didn’t seem to have got a good look at either Aziraphale or Crowley seated still inside the Bentley yet.

This was just as well because Aziraphale had got a very good look at her, and his body had stopped doing whatever it was lungs needed to do to keep working. 

This frazzled looking woman dressed in blue scrubs and a purple hooded sweatshirt was pulsing with light. Not in the same way all humans had a spark of the divine, it wasn’t even the old firefly glow of Crowley and Lilith. 

It was bright like Aziraphale was bright and like Aziraphale, she was cut off from the source of divinity; the source of light. 

Her true name might as well have been tattooed across her face. It was so obvious. To Aziraphale, this revelation felt about as pleasant as dropping a hairdryer into the bath. 

She was holding a reusable shopping bag in one arm that from what he could see contained cat food and half a dozen oranges. 

He hadn’t seen her in millennia. She hadn’t been herself back then. She’d appeared as a willowy Greek man. She seemed much more human now, much more comfortable.

They helped the unconscious woman onto a bench on the pavement. The archangel in scrubs gave more advice to some other concerned passers-by

“Ella?” Said Crowley, stepping out of the Bentley which was currently blocking traffic in the middle of the road.

Aziraphale’s long lost sister let out a groan. “Oh bollocks, Anthony Bloody Crowley? How the Aitch are you?”

“Pretty good, considering a person just carked it in front of me. Come on, angel.”

“Angel?” ‘Ella’ muttered, glancing at Aziraphale properly for the first time. “Oh…”

“It’s me! Don’t you remember?” Aziraphale asked a little indignant he wasn’t so instantly recognizable.

The woman frowned deeply and grabbing his sleeve she dragged Aziraphale over to Crowley, so they were out of human earshot.

“Is he with you?” she hissed at the demon.

“Yes, in every sense of the word.” Smiled Crowley. “I trust Aziraphale with all my soul”

Ella glanced at Aziraphale again and sighed. “Crowley I start my fuckin’ shift in fifteen minutes I’m not gonna have time for coffee at this rate.”

“Don’t look at me, love, we didn’t touch her. I only stopped because he wouldn't let me drive straight on over her.” He nodded in Aziraphale's direction. The angel didn't smile or even react. He just stood glassy-eyed and listless like he was holding the door open for an indecisive cat and he'd gone off elsewhere in his mind. 

Ella made a noise of frustration. “It’s Ezrafiel, right? Hi, how are you?”

“I’m fine, Rafael a little confused? How do you know Crowley?”

“Gosh, I think we met in the fifteenth century, was it?" Crowley nodded." Yeah, must've been, I was working as a plague doctor and he was fucking about with John Dee, weren’t you?”

“John!" The demon exclaimed. "He was a card that one! I mean he was a gross antisemite but the bit with the Enochian, angel, that was Ella’s idea that! You should've been there! Hilarious!”

Ella put on a silly deep voice. “Ooh, I’m John Dee I’ve been communing with the angels” Ella scoffed. “Communing my holy ass, if you listened to anything, I had to say you would have cooled it with the Imperialism, that ruff necked little shit. Oh no, now I really am going to be late for work, boys, and I don’t have that much teleportation energy to take both me and the groceries.”

She wiggled her shopping bag for emphasis.

“Come on then, you want a lift?" Crowley asked. "Where are you working? St. Barnabas?”

"No, I’m doing my residency at Great Ormond now. Nice to renew the old license now and then.”

Aziraphale and Crowley got back into the Bentley, Ella took the back seat with her bag.

Aziraphale felt woozy and incorporeal trying to keep a hold on the conversation. “You work at a hospital? You’re a doctor?” He finally remembered how to make his mouth say things but it kind of came out like a whimper.

The woman smiled. “Yeah? What do you think I’ve been doing? Sitting under a fig tree twiddling my thumbs?” she said drily.

“Well no, but where have you been?”

“Oh, just the TESCO up the road...” she said gesturing to a block of shops behind them.

Aziraphale shook his head. “For the last 3000 years, Rafael?!”

“Oh, right. Well, you know... I’ve been around...and it’s Ella now if you don’t mind, Rafa _ela.”_

Crowley nodded, as if in support. “Hey, angel, I’m coming up on Great Ormond Street why don’t we all catch up over lunch or something some other, when Ella isn’t working?”

“No, of course. Uh... Ella...do you have a cellular phone?” he asked,

“Yes, I do. Though, I’m not very good with these things.

“Could I give you my number? I promise not to be rude about it, I’m not going to phone home, I'm not exactly on speaking terms with them either.”

She shrugged. “Sure. I don’t see the harm in that. Crowley you still got the same number?”

“I’m not giving up 06-616-6666 even if they have to claw it from my dead hands.” He said looking back over his shoulder at her.

Ella chuckled. “Strange hill to die on my friend but I suppose we all must die.”

“Thought you were going off to Hong Kong last I heard.” Said Crowley merging lanes rapid-fire to avoid taking out an ambulance.

“I was just after the new millennium yes but then some enlightened little chimpanzee in Surrey tried to bring back polio and I had to go sort that out and here I am nearly two decades later.”

"Life happens like that." tutted Crowley, as if he was a commiserating neighbor.

“Yes, well don’t suppose you lot had anything to do with that did they?” Ella asked.

Crowley shrugged. “Polio? No, though we did invent public swimming pools.”

“ _Antivaxxers,_ Crowley.”

“Oh.” He shook his head. “Nope, don’t think so. Think they might have come up with that one themselves just to spite human progress.”

Ella rolled her eyes, which Aziraphale noted were the color of old, tea-stained papyrus, the only hint of an anomaly in her human vessel.

“That or She’s tossing me a fastball for the fun of it.” She said.

“She does love her team sports,” Crowley said with a chuckle. “Except Synchronised Swimming, That’s Hell’s.”

“Oh, and I think Gabby coined croquet.” Ella chimed in.

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Figures, the wanker.”

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale warned, on autopilot.

“What? This forked tongue only speaks the truth.”

Aziraphale sighed dramatically and resumed looking forlornly out the window like a pained but sensible female protagonist in a Bronte novel. Crowley glanced aside at him and frowned.

* * *

“Aziraphale- are you distracted or just ignoring me?” Crowley asked as they drove back towards SoHo. The angel in question was still staring sullenly out the passenger side window, and not making any rude comments about his driving or the Freddie Mercury morph of Pachelbel's Canon in D that was playing over the Bentley's speakers.

"I can hear you just fine, my dear man," Aziraphale said softly.

The endearment was phrased like an insult which was arguably the most passive-aggressive Crowley had seen his angel in several months at least- the last time had been when a customer started on a Francis Bacon truther diatribe.

"Are you cross with me?" He asked.

“Of course not,” Said Aziraphale crossly, arms crossed across his chest. “I’m a divine beacon of clemency and patience.”

"Of course you are, angel." Crowley chuckled. "Is this about Ella?"

"My brother has been missing for millennia his absence has caused endless strife and upheaval in the Angelic Hierarchy and I find out not only is he alive he's sauntering around London, palling around with you and you never told me."

“ _She_ is your _sister_ , Aziraphale, and to be honest with you it’s not like you ever asked. Like if it ever came up like “Oh Crowley, we never knew where the archangel Rafael went, I would have said her name is Ella now and she’s working as an ER doctor in Leeds. I didn’t know you were close."

“She is the archangel of healing, in Catholicism, she’s the patron of medicine, lovers and the blind. Until she deserted her post, she was in charge of assigning guardian angels to people in need.”

“That sounds dull as bricks. Maybe she got sick of assigning things and wanted to go freelance guarding. Why does it bother you so much?”

Aziraphale smacked his lips together in frustration “She was my idol, Crowley if you’ll excuse the awkward turn of phrase. I looked up to her.”

“So? Now she’s closer than before, all you have to do is move your eyes.”

“I can’t expect you to understand, can I?” The angel mumbled moodily to himself.

Crowley shrugged. “Maybe not. I mean I have co-demons, but I’d sell them all out to Gabriel for 50p and a Cornetto. It’s not like we’re siblings. Just classmates in detention.”

“You have Lilith,” said Aziraphale softly. “Rafael was my Lilith.”

The demon scoffed. “So, like a rude and bossy lesbian with a demon army?”

“No, I mean like a big sister.”

“Big sister who made one good decision in her life and hasn’t shut up about it since.” Muttered Crowley "Remind me to call her later she owes me like 20 shekels from brunch the other day."

“What if she never wants to see me again?” bemoaned Aziraphale. “Maybe she’d rather be rid of me and anything that reminds her of heaven.” He sighed. “I can hardly blame her.”

Crowley gave the angel’s hand a squeeze. “There, there, _dodi_. Why don’t we go home and watch Dame Saint Julie and maybe you’ll feel better.”

* * *

_(A Few Weeks Later)_

Crowley hadn’t moved from the seat he was sprawled backward in like some kind of cephalopod when Aziraphale returned to the bookshop, twenty minutes later, with two takeaway cups of tea and a box of pastries from the dainty little French patisserie around the corner.

"Anyone come in while I was out, dear?” He asked, handing Crowley his cup and fussily fixing the man’s chaotic Chia Pet mop of hair

"Actually," Crowley paused to take a loud and unnecessary slurp of his tea. “I believe that there is an archangel in the history section eyeing up your Pliny the Elder.”

“What?” Aziraphale shoved his own cup of tea in the demon's free hand dumped the pastry box on the countertop.

True to Crowley’s word, there in the back, dressed in casual clothes stood Rafaela, the same as she’d looked when they saw her last.

She was cautiously thumbing through a copy of Natural History with the same kind of amused condescension Aziraphale afforded street preachers who insisted on telling him their adorable little story about how to get into heaven. As if it was a place. Cute.

She startled when she noticed him there. She wore her natural hair out and Aziraphale was struck quiet momentarily when he noticed her hair followed the movement of her head like a halo. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant association for him.

“Hey, Um Ezra!? Is it okay if I call you Ezra? that’s what it says on the sign outside. Ezra Fell, Rare Book Dealer.”

“Why you know... When in Rome...” he laughed awkwardly. “Anything catch your eye?” He asked gesturing at the very old book in her hands.

Ella laughed, looking a little embarrassed. "Oh! Sorry, Pliny’s an old friend. Talked straight out his arse about absolutely everything, but he was fun to be around.”

Aziraphale smiled, nervous and wan. "Well feel free to have a look, Rafaela I don’t mind’.

This was a lie. He minded a whole lot, but he was trying to be better about it.

"No, it’s okay I was just waiting for you.” She put the book back, correctly on the correct shelf. Aziraphale relaxed. “I’m sorry I’m a bit late. I told Crowley I’d be here earlier but then Dalet knocked a whole plunger full of coffee across my kitchen table where all my laundry was folded to be put away and I had to go get my other set of scrubs from the laundromat so I have something to wear to work tomorrow.”

"Oh no, no, no! You're not late at all if anything you’re early! I mean look, you got the right day in the right century and everything!" He glanced aside at the demon “ _Crowley didn’t actually say when you were coming_ to start with, so no harm done.”

“Dalet is your cat?” Crowley asked completely ignoring the death glares from his other half. 

Ella smiled. “Yes, she’s one of six, well technically she’s the third of six but whatever. I found them behind a block of flats several years back I think their mother got bowled on the road.”

“I can extrapolate what the other five are called,” he said with a smirk. 

Ella chuckled at that, brushing some baby hairs from her forehead. “Yeah, I used the Alef-Bet because I wasn’t planning on keeping them but here, I am four years later and I’m still in London, so I guess that’s where I need to be.”

“Have you been in London the whole time?” Aziraphale asked. “I mean since the John Dee incident?”

She shook her head. “No, heavens no. I’d go completely feral if I stay here longer than a decade. Turn into one of those ophanim with a thousand eyes that just scream indefinitely. Why Ezra, have you?”

He paused. “Well, no. No of course not.” _But I didn’t know you were even on earth until the other day._ ’ he thought but didn’t say.

“For a while, I’d go wherever there were outbreaks, I spent about eighteen months here during the Black Death but of course they wouldn’t bloody listen to anything I said about hygiene or fleas. So I went back to France to find out the people I had been living with before had all been killed or cast out because some absolute genius thought quarantine and a mikveh were the works of... well...” She gestured towards Crowley. “your... associates.”

Crowley hissed, but it wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. Both angels present chose to ignore it.

“Humans are fakakta little monkeys, aren’t they?” he snarled. “They tried that on me once too in Prague- Luckily for some, It didn’t end in their favor.”

Ella smiled back at him. To Aziraphale's confusion and surprise, the smile was genuine. 

Not that he’d admit to anything like Avarice but he was a little bit jealous. He didn't expect Crowley to get along with any angel that wasn't him.

“Yeah. Needless to say, the 14th century was not my favorite. I ended up in Florence, like many of the Sephardim who’d already been kicked out of England in that time.”

"Sorry, did you say, Seraphim?" Aziraphale asked coming back to the conversation in the middle of things and realizing he had no idea what was going on.

“No, Sephardim. I mean there’s a lot of paintings of Michael and Gabby and the like from that period, but they weren’t anywhere near my quarter of town and that’s just how I liked it. Don’t get me wrong I love my brothers, but we don’t like each other very much.”

Aziraphale chuckled at that, he couldn’t have put it better himself.

“Ella, If you were in Florence after the plague you must have been around the right time for renaissance medicine? Or did you not stick around.” He asked.

She shook her head, “Oh no, I was there for that, that was just before I met Crowley I gotta say no matter how much fluids I have to clean up in my current job I couldn’t be happier to be getting further and further away from leeches and humors I was not a fan.”

“No,” said Crowley. “Neither was I, and I’m a snake. Leeches are like miserable little potstickers to snakes.”

Ella pulled a face at that description.

“Anyway, about five or six hundred years of moving from outbreak to outbreak I didn’t feel like I was doing much just flitting about avoiding all the bloodsucking missionaries.”

Aziraphale and Crowley both nodded in sympathy at that. Ella kept talking.

“I mean a single vaccine now can do a century of work for me and don’t get me wrong that’s divine! I’m overjoyed about modern medicine, mostly. It just meant that come to the nineties heading towards the new millennia I didn’t feel like I was serving my purpose as well as I could, so I thought about it and I talked it over with Ima for a while.”

“Ima?" Crowley frowned in confusion; the gesture pushed his glasses up his face.

“Crowley, don’t interrupt you know what that means.”

"Yes, except angels don’t have a mother.” The demon said.

Aziraphale sighed. “The archangels were the first children, though many of them have been...misguided over the years and distanced their relationships it doesn’t make them any less children of G-d. Besides humans use father in liturgy all the time."

"Yeah, I mean but that's just-"

Aziraphale cut him off mid-sentence. "-Avinu Malkeinu, dear? I thought that was one of your favorites."

"That's just humans, isn't it?” Said Crowley “They'd gender a rock if you put a bow on it."

Ella rolled her eyes. "Look, I know she doesn’t have a gender I mean technically speaking neither did I to start with. But I found one, this body, this person, becoming Ella the woman, the doctor, the friend, the neighbor. I feel the Shechinah- the Presence more in the little moments here now than I ever did in Mamre or Sodom or Bethesda."

Aziraphale looked around his bookshop, at the way the light filtered in through the curtains on his favorite armchair making the perfect reading nook. 

The cool morning sunlight bounced off the blue glass Nazar charm Crowley had hung on the wall above a photograph of the two of them, as a joke. He smiled to himself and then again at his sister.

“I understand, Raf-sorry- Ella. I couldn’t have said it as beautifully as you, but I feel the same way.”

Crowley mimed loud gagging noises. "I’m gonna help myself to a pastry you two can stay here and be as saccharine and disgusting as your heart's desire I’m just going to sit over by the counter there where I can stuff pan au chocolat down my throat and not have to listen to all this goodness and joy."

"Pick up your crumbs this time," Aziraphale called after him. "I don't want to open another first edition Keats and find your mess has wormed its way into the pages."

Crowley scowled, "Yes, dearest, my old ball, and chain." He cooed back in an insipid upper-class accent.

"He’s... an odd one." Ella said in that mild British way that somehow spanned the gamut of 'teenage cousin who’s a little too into his car' to 'Actual demon sitting upside down in an armchair making rude Wikipedia edits all the while eating a croissant'. It was an understatement, to say the least, but it was also true.

"Yes, but he’s Crowley." Said Aziraphale warmly,

Ella raised a dark brow at him that said many more words than her mouth ever could. 

"He certainly is.”

Az turned a shade of burgundy that would rival a fine wine. 

"Yes, well anyway, dear Ella, you’d gotten up to the Renaissance?"

"Right, do you mind if we sit down too? I feel a bit spare standing around telling my life story. This isn't a sermon."

"Of course." Aziraphale moved over to take up an armchair he gestured for her to take a seat on the sofa.

"Ezra..." She began.

"It’s peculiar to hear you call me that," Aziraphale said carefully. Not brave enough to ask her to stop.

"Do you prefer Ezrafiel?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Aziraphale is what I usually go by. It got Hellenised around the sixth century."

Ella pulled a face. "Hellenised? I thought you'd converted."

"I did recently yes. Who told you about that?"

His sister gave the most shit-eating grin. " _Ezra Lior ben Avraham_.”

Aziraphale cringed. "Oh dear. She’s giving out my Hebrew name now. Am I in trouble?”

Ella burst into laughter at that, and it was a beautiful and rich sound. Romantic poets tended to associate angels with Christian choirs and church bells, but to Aziraphale, that was largely outdated. Ella was a Billie Holiday track with a, particularly nice saxophone solo.

"She's proud of you, you numpty.” She said when she’d finished laughing, she gave Aziraphale’s knee a fond pat. “I thought I was the only one of us who'd been given a new name in Millenia and she told me you took a Hebrew name."

"You got a new name?” He asked. “You mean Ella?"

"Rafaela, yeah it's just a syllable change to reflect my gender but it means a lot that. She offered to change it at all. She doesn't just hand those out to anyone. It’s like me finding my purpose is on the same level as Yaakov punching you in the face."

Aziraphale furrowed his brow at that particular "Yes, well let’s let bygones be bygones and all that. You know an awful lot about Judaism for an Archangel. I thought you were all supposed to be impartial." 

"I mean in theory we were but in practice...” Ella paused. “There's a very good reason humans make a distinction between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy, Ezrafiel." She said with a sigh. "We started off as ten, Metatron got promoted. Then those two absolute clowns Sariel and Ramiel fell. Suddenly we’re left with seven."

“Oh, I know those guys,” Piped up Crowley from the corner again. “I mean their names are different now but we’ve uh met.”

Ella grinned. “Horny little fuckers, aren’t they?”

"Ella, please.” Whined Aziraphale, “Do you have to phrase it like that?"

She gave him a side-eyed look."What? I was at Sodom, and they disobeyed orders. They couldn’t keep it in their pants to save themselves.”

Crowley cackled at this. "Oh, I missed this, Az. Can we keep her?"

"You don't keep angels, Crowley." He said sternly

The demon lifted his glasses just to wink (badly) at him. "Oh? I did, didn’t I?”

This time Aziraphale's ears went rosé pink.

Ella just grinned huge and wide, the predatory display of an elder sibling.

"You have archangels like Uriel, who is actually fairly impartial sure, they do their job, follow instructions and keep to themself. But they aren't the majority. If anything, I’d call them unique. Tzadakiel witnessed the Akeida and came back changed.”

“That’s understandable,” Aziraphale said solemnly. “I don’t think that played out like anyone expected.” He heard Crowley chuckle drily at that.

Ella kept talking. “He said wanted no more to do with humanity. Last I heard he went back to being Sofiel and shut himself up in his library.”

Aziraphale nodded at that. He recognized the name, but he hadn’t actually heard of Sofiel doing anything in many centuries.

“Even my own twin has been predominantly Muslim since the time of the prophets. That’s not a criticism on my part either, it really just seems like they found a place that fit.”

Aziraphale nodded. “If the few Qurans I have around the store are anything to go off Israfil certainly seems to be living well.” 

Ella smiled at the name, but the smile quickly died on her lips.

“Unlike Michael and Gabby who fucked off and ditched me for the Romans when they figured Christianity was gonna be the next big thing, that was all -to steal a human phrase- a dick measuring contest. I don't suppose they've got any better in my absence?”

Aziraphale shook his head sympathetically. “Unfortunately, no. I mean Gabriel has his moments of goodwill but, well...” he trailed off.

"Oh, for the love of- just say what you mean, angel, Michael's a wanker, Uriel licks his boots, and Gabriel's so far up his own arse he'll be chasing the light of day ad infinitum like one of those snakes from Greece."

Ella snickered.

"I thought you didn't want to listen to us, dear heart." Aziraphale drawled. 

"What? Oh. Yeah.” Crowley waved limply in the air. “Never mind me."

"They certainly don't seem to have improved. I’ll give you that. As for the others. I can't speak to their actions but, if they were impartial, well, were the Crusades on us or on the humans, was the Spanish Inquisition? The Shoah? Bosnia? Rwanda? Armenia?” Ella looked away and down at the floor. “The Eternal got kind of snippy with me asking that.”

Crowley laughed, but this time it was a dry and mirthless sound. “Now, where have I heard that one before.” He muttered darkly to himself.

“Crowley... love...” Aziraphale said gently funneling all the compassion and devotion for the other man into his voice. “Not now.”

The demon scowled and rain a hand back through his already messy hair, but his anger seemed to dissipate. He took an aggressive bite out of a custard danish.

Ella shot him a sympathetic look. “Yeah. Long story short I guess, Ima said if I was insistent on acting on my own agency outside of rank and as long as I promised not to go and bat for... the other side. I could make my own choices. I chose to do what little good I can on my own. I chose to ask myself the questions, I chose to wrestle with an angel, but this time the angel is me." 

“ _Mazel tov_ ,” Said Crowley, sipping his tea that no doubt, Aziraphale thought, was cold by now. “Welcome to the tribe, we have a potluck every first Shabbat of the month and every two hundred years we get expelled from a different country!”

Ella laughed again. “Regardless, _Anthony_ , I am happy to be here.”

Aziraphale smiled at her softly, the warmth and love he felt bubbling up felt like a great flood it swept through the bookshop and onto the Soho street outside. 

A blue-haired woman in a jean jacket vaping outside the sweet shop met eyes with another woman in a hijab and floral maxi dress who was waiting for the crossing light. They shared a meaningful look.

"Aziraphale please, you're making my nose hairs stand on end," Crowley said, watching bewildered as the pair outside talked and exchanged smiles and phone numbers. 

The angel at least had the grace to look a little bit sheepish.

"Sorry, dear. I'll reign it in," he said.

“So, that’s me.” Said Ella. “What about you two?”

What about us? Squeaked Aziraphale with the same primal fear as a teen asked to define ‘fursona’ at the family dinner table.

“What have you been up to? You said you’re not talking to Upstairs but you’re both still here and you seem relatively in good nick. Have they let up on fraternization regs since I’ve been gone?”

Oh, no. Course not!” Crowley chimed in with a grin. “However, they’re still so infernally pissed that we stopped the apocalypse that I don’t think they’ve got far down enough on my list of fuck-ups to know about Az yet.”

“Personally? I think Somebody likes him.” Said Aziraphale watching the demon with a warm and comfortable fondness.

“I mean she hasn’t whited me out in the Book of Life this year I’ve got that going for me, I guess.”

“You don’t mind, do you? Rafaela?” Aziraphale asked, nervous all of a sudden.

"Mind? Ezrafiel I have been completely alone in this world except for the sporadic presence of my mother for 3000 years. Who on Earth am I to mind? I’m just happy to have someone I can talk to normally, besides Crowley and I go way back. HE could be a demon or a sentient pigeon at this point I don’t care! Some demons aren’t too bad anyway, I mean, I knew his sister a while back” 

“Oh, why do I know exactly who you mean” Aziraphale groaned the exact same time as Crowley gleefully asked: 

“Oh, you _knew_ her?”

Ella screwed up her face. “No! Not like that! I meant knew in the modern sense of the word! I was trying to build a mikveh for the diseased of Nineveh and she’d just come and hang out and bring me some dates or whatever. She’s very smart and lovely, but she’s not my type. I don’t think I have one, I’m far too busy.”

“Oh yeah, she had a major temple out that way for a while” Said Crowley. “Nice place, if you overlook the Avodah _Zara_ and all. Bit gauche but I mean that’s her all over.”

“How did that end up working out?” Ella asked.

Crowley shrugged. “It was a world heritage site up until someone carpet-bombed it a couple of years back”.

Aziraphale sighed and shook his head.

Ella shot him a sympathetic smile. "Humans are tiring. Don’t they tire you, Ezrafiel?”

"I don’t try to associate with them all too much, my dear." He said gently.

"I do. I live with them, work with them, pray with them and when I really think I’ve got them then they go and do something downright...." She trailed off gesturing in the air for a word.

"Ineffable?" Crowley suggested coyly.

“Yes!” Ella yelped pointing in his direction. “Ineffable, exactly!”

Crowley shrugged. “Is that so surprising to you angels? Are they not supposed to be _B’tselem Elokim_ and all that jazz?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean....” Aziraphale started to say and frowned. “It doesn’t make them divine.”

“Doesn’t make them damned either. I’ve been telling you since Adam- the first one, not our wee Adam- They’re not one or the other. Sometimes they’re both sometimes they’re neither, but whether we like it or not HaShem made these flightless little gremlins with the capability to both make or destroy.”

"That’s it that’s the ineffable part!" said Ella "You never know what they’re going to do when. Isn’t that exhausting?”

“I don’t know," said Aziraphale "I think we’re quite fond of them really aren’t we Crowley?"

Crowley shrugged. “I’d say there’s a good fifty percent of them, worth rebelling for- and besides what are the alternative? Populating the earth with demons, sheydim, angels? Present company excluded; I’d rather gnaw off my own hands.”

Ella laughed at that; she was staring at her hands in her lap smiling. “You’re right. I don’t think I made the easy choice, but I think I made the right one.”

“And I think that’s very human of you,” Aziraphale said gently, reaching out and taking his sister’s hand in his own. “Besides it’s not like you’re alone in walking the middle road anymore. You have us.”

“And if you’re serious about that asking questions schtick I can introduce you to my Rabbi,” Crowley offered. “Az and I go to Bevis Marks in Aldgate. It’s about twenty minutes from your hospital if you take the tube.”

“Oh, but do watch out for him, Ella, he’ll try and set you up with his daughter as soon as he hears you’re a doctor,” Aziraphale added knowingly.

Ella laughed. “I think I could handle that.” She smiled again a little awkwardly. “Thank you, boys. For the offers.”

“You chose to be here with us.” Said Aziraphale. “We should be thanking you."

**Author's Note:**

> Jewish terms mentioned:
> 
> mikveh- ritual pool or bath  
> b'tselem Elokim- made in G-d's image  
> Avodah Zara- Idol Worship


End file.
